Since the first sailing ships spied the Antarctic coastline in 1820, the frozen continent has captured the world's imagination. David Day's brilliant biography of Antarctica describes in fascinating detail every aspect of this vast land's history--two centuries of exploration, scientific investigation, and contentious geopolitics.

Drawing from archives from around the world, Day provides a sweeping, large-scale history of Antarctica. Focusing on the dynamic personalities drawn to this unconquered land, the book offers an engaging collective biography of explorers and scientists battling the elements in the most hostile place on earth. We see intrepid sea captains picking their way past icebergs and pushing to the edge of the shifting pack ice, sanguinary sealers and whalers drawn south to exploit "the Penguin El Dorado," famed nineteenth-century explorers like Scott and Amundson in their highly publicized race to the South Pole, and aviators like Clarence Ellsworth and Richard Byrd, flying over great stretches of undiscovered land. Yet Antarctica is also the story of nations seeking to incorporate the Antarctic into their national narratives and to claim its frozen wastes as their own. As Day shows, in a place as remote as Antarctica, claiming land was not just about seeing a place for the first time, or raising a flag over it; it was about mapping and naming and, more generally, knowing its geographic and natural features. And ultimately, after a little-known decision by FDR to colonize Antarctica, claiming territory meant establishing full-time bases on the White Continent.

The end of the Second World War would see one last scramble for polar territory, but the onset of the International Geophysical Year in 1957 would launch a cooperative effort to establish scientific bases across the continent. And with the Antarctic Treaty, science was in the ascendant, and cooperation rather than competition was the new watchword on the ice. Tracing history from the first sighting of land up to the present day, Antarctica is a fascinating exploration of this deeply alluring land and man's struggle to claim it.

• We started tracking this book on June 20, 2013.
• This book was $13.74 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 47 times in the past 4,419 days.
• The current price of this book is $9.99 last checked one hour ago.
• The lowest price to date was $9.99 last reached on July 23, 2025.
• This book has been $9.99 3 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $26.99 last reached on May 7, 2025.
• This book has been $26.99 one time since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• HistoryWorldExpeditions & Discoveries
• TravelPolar Regions
• HistoryArctic & Antarctica

• Publication Date: June 3, 2013
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 589 Pages
• File Size: 29 KB